Trish and I just got back from vacation in Las Vegas. See the photos here. We had a great time visiting Sean, Mimi, Emily & Michael Cotter. Vegas is an interesting place; at 6:00 am when we were looking around for breakfast, there was no shortage of people at the bar. Watching them struggle to open a fresh beer, it was pretty obvious they’d been there all night.
We arrived on Saturday (Valentines Day). To celebrate, we all went out for sushi at place called Todai. Trish and I had our first experience with sushi at Todai while we were visiting Sean and Mimi in Honolulu, and it was fun to go again with them.
Sunday, we headed out to explore the strip. Each of the casino’s has a particular theme. For example, we stayed at the MGM Grand, which is based after Hollywood and movie stars. After visiting the Venetian and New York, NY, Trish remarked that the casinos have the, ‘thinnest of veneers’ when it comes to authenticity. At the Venetian, we took a ride in a gondola past replicas of St. Marks Square and the Bridge of Sighs. Just for kicks, I overlaid the pictures the real thing from our trip to Venice. Click here to see the photos. They did a pretty good job on the Rialto Bridge; however everything else took a little more imagination. Funny, I don’t remember having a moving sidewalk, but then again, there was a great deal of drinking in Venice so perhaps I just forgot about it.
That afternoon, Sean brought the kids over. Using our best ‘parental intuition’, we took them to the M&M factory for a full day of sugar & chocolate. After they finished bouncing off the walls in our hotel room, Sean had the pleasure of taking them home.
Monday, we visited Hoover dam and rested a little. I had a short bout with food poisoning, so Trish had double duty caring for me and kids. We celebrated Trish’s birthday at Sean’s with a delicious chocolate ice cream cake.
Since Mimi had been called out of town with a death in her family, David and I got to babysit for our niece and nephew/godson on Tuesday. What a wonderful way to finish off our trip! Our final meal in Vegas was at the McDonald's Playland in North Las Vegas, surrounded by the relaxing strains of screaming children and shrill parents. See the video here - 4 MB download. The lovely aroma of fried burgers, french fries, and onions wafted in the air. The best part of the outing was when Emily informed me that she would have a cheeseburger with "no pickles and no olives". We had a blast--and the kids were really excellent! We even discussed doing it again sometime this decade.
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